


You're Ripped At Every Edge But You're A Masterpiece

by TheForgottenDreams



Series: I Said 'I Love You' [15]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Angst, Comfort, Heartbreak, M/M, Song writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheForgottenDreams/pseuds/TheForgottenDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And, all because of purple.”</p>
<p>“Purple?” Courfeyrac asked. He felt himself nod, felt himself move forward, place the paper on the table, grip the chair in front of him, felt himself sway in time to the photos on the wall. “Enjolras, I really think you should sit down.”</p>
<p>“Purple, red and blue makes purple” Enjolras moved his eyes from the table, from the paper, to Combeferre, “Purple just wasn’t for him, like it was a piece of clothing, like it could be swapped, like I could be thrown away, like I’m not in love with him. I want to hate him, but I can’t because I love him, I love him so much.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Ripped At Every Edge But You're A Masterpiece

Enjolras knew how much his best friends loved their Sunday mornings. He usually grabbed breakfast with Éponine out somewhere to let them laze around in peace, but he’d been cancelling brunch with the brunette to spend time with Grantaire – under the guise that he needed the sleep. He usually saw Courfeyrac slumped on the kitchen table, always in the patch of sunlight thrown there by the sun through the window as he slipped past unnoticed. The radio would be playing quietly in the background as Courfeyrac sang, breaking from the chains of sleep, a huge mug of coffee in front of him, made perfectly by Combeferre. The smell of breakfast filled the room, making their stomach’s roar as Combeferre created something. 

Enjolras knew Courfeyrac liked to lay there, head on his arms, half on the table half in his chair, watching his boyfriend as he moved with a sort of dance to his step, shoulders loose, hair wild from sleep. He loved Combeferre, had done since they were little and over the course of their relationship they had an easy routine. Sunday mornings were his favourite part of that. They were so domestic, so laid back and relaxed. Courfeyrac had once told Enjolras that he felt like he and Combeferre were an old married couple, Enjolras would be their unruly son, always getting into trouble with his partner in crime Éponine. That had made him grin for the accuracy was scary.

So Enjolras hated to interrupt as he watched them from the door. Envying them, hurting because they were everything he wanted with Grantaire, they had the ease around each other that was only achieved with love and dedication and years of experience, they knew how to make each other smile, how to comfort one another, how to just be. 

“I wrote a song.” Enjolras’ voice blank and eyes even more so, though neither could see it, they had their backs to him, and he once again was full of pain and regret for ruining their peace and happiness with his heartache. The summer morning air filtered in from the open window, fluttering the polaroid photos pinned to the wall, the wall that had been specially lined with cork to allow them to do that. Pictures of their friends, their families quivered in the breeze, smiling faces dancing on the air but Enjolras could only see Grantaire’s face staring back at him.

“Oh yeah?” Combeferre asked, pouring the milk into his cereal on the counter, the radio belting out an old song, not his usual choice but Enjolras knew it was because Coufeyrac loved old songs to wake him up in the morning and Combeferre had never been able to say no to him. 

“About revolution?” Courfeyrac asked, head still against the table the sun was warm and also, he probably couldn’t be bothered to move. 

“No.” Enjolras answered, still in the doorway. He never got to sing the songs he wrote anyway, the ones about the injustice in the world, they didn’t fit with his image, Jehan said they were ‘beautifully chaotic poems from a revolutionary mind’, but Combeferre couldn’t let him release them as his agent. 

“What about then?”

Enjolras tried to keep the sound in, he did but when they asked it all came back to him and he let it out, a pained noise, like a very wounded, very demonic animal. It made him wince. There was so much hurt in the sound, so much heartbreak and emotion that he didn’t usually care to express. It made Combeferre turn around, concern etching itself onto his face, Courfeyrac looked up with a similar expression that only deepened when they actually saw Enjolras, properly.

Enjolras knew he looked like shit, but the expressions on Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s faces made him want to run away and lock himself in his room for the twentieth time since he’d ventured out of it. He never thought his face was much but others thought he was normally so radiant and full of life, if that was true he looked like a dimmer version of himself. Skin paler than usual, dark marks bruised underneath his eyes, watered down versions of themselves, the grey of them faded, ringed with red. His cheeks gaunt, slightly concave instead of sharp, all of him was too skinny, too thin, he didn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, dinner maybe, last week, with Grantaire. His curls fell forlornly, unwashed, limp and dull a paradox of his normally bouncy, shiny state. He felt like he might faint. 

“Enjolras?” Combeferre asked, moving forwards slowly, his face was a riot of worry and concern and apprehension.

“I-I’m sorry I just- I just love him.” Enjolras said, voice cracking, the paper in his hand made a sound as he clenched his fists, he was sure he was breaking into a million shards of pain, his face hurt, his head hurt, his heart hurt. He wanted it to end. 

“Who Enjolras? Use your words.” Courfeyrac said, voice reassuring and gentle. “Come sit down, you look faint.” 

Enjolras just looked Courfeyrac in the eye, shaking his head slowly, “I love him, Courf’, I love him so much and I let him get close and then I let him leave. I didn’t fight for him, I let him leave.” 

“Who?”

“I couldn’t tell you, I thought that’s what he wanted, that’s what he said he wanted. That’s what it seemed like with all the hotels and sneaking around and the codes.” Enjolras continued. He remembered the last time he’d hurt this much, when he’d been so unlike himself, they’d seen it once before, once when he’d told them all he and Éponine had been through when he had to explain why there was a girl their age and a ten-year-old living with them in their shared apartment.

“Go on.” Combeferre prompted, moving closer again. 

“He, he said he wanted to end it and I didn’t even fight for him. He said he knew there was an imbalance of feelings and he was grateful I hadn’t talk about it. He knew I loved him and he didn’t want me to say. So I let him slip through my fingers.” Enjolras carried on, “He said I was red. I was never red, never. He was. Dangerous. Cruel. Burning. I was blue. Sad. Lost. Cold.”

“Why?”

“I found him and then he left me.” Enjolras sobbed or he thought he did, he couldn’t hear much over the pain, he saw Combeferre was crying and he realised his own face was bleeding with tears, a haemorrhage of water dripping onto his top and his feet and the floor. The song on the radio switched to some ballad, so mournful and fitting it would have been laughable if not for the tangible pain in the room, “And, all because of purple.”

“Purple?” Courfeyrac asked. He felt himself nod, felt himself move forward, place the paper on the table, grip the chair in front of him, felt himself sway in time to the photos on the wall. “Enjolras, I really think you should sit down.”

“Purple, red and blue makes purple” Enjolras moved his eyes from the table, from the paper, to Combeferre, “Purple just wasn’t for him, like it was a piece of clothing, like it could be swapped, like I could be thrown away, like I’m not in love with him. I want to hate him, but I can’t because I love him, I love him so much.” 

“Who, Enjolras who?” 

“Please tell us.” Combeferre spoke, voice imploring and eyes soft, “So we can help.” 

“I love him so much, it hurts, does it always hurt?” Enjolras asked, looking in their eyes for some kind of answer, some kind of guide.

“Sometimes.” 

“How can we help?” Courfeyrac broached the question carefully, not wanting to get up and touch him in case his touch brought more pain than comfort. 

“I wrote a song.” Enjolras gestured to the table absent-mindedly. 

“Can I read it?” Courfeyrac asked. 

Enjolras nodded, felt himself walk to the sink, he looked out into the bright sun, the few people walking around with dogs and friends and he was struck with hurt. He heard Courfeyrac picked up the paper. It had been damp from where Enjolras had clamped it in his hand and read the words scrawled there, the ink smudged, the emotion raw and so open it made him breathless. He heard Courfeyrac pass it to Combeferre wordlessly. Combeferre read every word, the ones hashed out and the ones clearly there, he saw the heartbreak poured into it, heard how Enjolras would sing it, angry maybe, a little bitter and rude, but mostly just sad, so openly sad. 

“Oh Enjolras.” Combeferre sighed. 

“I swear to god the next time I see Grantaire I will murder him.” Courfeyrac seethed. Because it was so obvious who the song was about and Enjolras knew that, but he needed that in the song, needed Grantaire to know. 

“Everything is blue.” Enjolras whispered, voice catching as he stared out at nothing. 

They got up and moved to him in sync, each from a side. They pulled him into a hug and he crumpled into them like the lyrics on the paper, laid on the table, he sobbed into their shoulders as they stroked his hair and whispered nothing to him and he let them, going boneless in their capable arms. They cried together, his pain loud enough for them all to be deafened. But they would help, they would try to piece him back together again, to build him into what he once was, stronger.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is an important note. 
> 
> Colours is actually the song that inspired this whole collection and it has so much meaning to me, I just, I get emotional. It’s written about Matt Healy who is obviously the lead singer in The 1975 and the guy I based Grantaire on.   
> I love the music video, so I recommend you check it out if you hadn’t already. 
> 
> This is the first piece I wrote for this series and from here I saw the rest of their story and how it fit to the songs and then I just wrote, I didn't have an end but I have now and it's going to make up for everything.  
> This song shaped a lot of the previous parts as did Sex, Settle Down and Is There Somewhere. I absolutely love this song (and the others) they means so much to me and I don’t know if I really got the true meaning of them but I tried. 
> 
> There’s still some more parts to go, it isn’t over yet, I'm just slow because I got a new idea for another fic and I've been devoted to that for the past week, it's a really great au and I love it so much. I'm also debating a Waitress Au because I got hit with both Les Mis and Hamilton feels listening to the soundtrack. 
> 
> Alright, these notes are long so I'm going to end it now.   
> I hope you enjoyed the heartbreak (which is, I don't even know, it sounds wrong) there's a little more to come.   
> You can find my on tumblr as Beelzebertha - come yell at me or something.


End file.
